Lions trailblazers set sail for Down Under in 1888

Brendan Gallagher delves into some of rugby’s most enduring images, their story and why they are still so impactful

What’s happening here?

IT is, I reckon, March 11, 1888 at Plymouth docks and onboard the RMS Kaikoura the “England” rugby tourists have gathered for a quick group shot as they depart for their inaugural rugby tour of New Zealand and Australia. The squad was indeed predominantly English but also included a handful of Scots and Welsh so historians are agreed it can retrospectively be dubbed the first Lions tour. Nor were the English contingent – with three exceptions – capped players so it was an eclectic party all right.

Most of them had gathered at Tilbury docks two days earlier for a farewell dinner before the Kaikoura, a three master with a modest steam engine, moved down to Plymouth where the tour captain Robert Seddon, the England forward, embarked. He is the middle figure of those three seated with a rather striking Sherlock Holmes-type cape.

What’s the story behind the picture?

The rugby adventure was the brainchild of three notable cricket men, James Lillywhite, Alfred Shaw and Arthur Shrewsbury – all former Test players – who were smarting financially from the previous year when they had organised an England cricket tour to Australia. They may have been licking their wounds but remained convinced there was a modest fortune to be made on such international sporting trips.

The RFU did not want to get involved but they did not condemn it outright. Recruitment wasn’t easy though and only four capped players – Seddon, Andrew Stoddardt, and Jack Kent from England and William Henry Thomas from Wales – could be signed up. The most fertile ground proved to be the Northern clubs of England where broken time payments were already a fact of life and the strong suspicion remains that those who signed up – working class men with manual jobs – must have been promised generous “expenses” to make up for missing eight months at work.

What happened next?

A pioneering tour that established one of the great rugby traditions which happily continues to this day. In total the Lions have now contested 14 series in South Africa, 12 in New Zealand, nine in Australia and three in Argentina. At various times they have also called and played in Canada,

Brazil, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Hong Kong, Paris and Fiji.

As for this tour it was a very busy schedule, 35 games of rugby union in total, although none of them Test matches. Of those games they won 27, drew six and lost just twice, against Taranaki and Auckland. With the ever present need to balance the books 19 games of Victorian Rules Football – Aussies Rules – were also organised and despite being complete novices they manage to win six of those matches.

The Aussie leg of the tour also included the tragic death of Seddon on August 15 when, on a rare day off, he went down to the Floating Baths complex on the River Hunter in West Maitland to go rowing. With a number of colleagues relaxing in the clubhouse, Seddon, an experienced oarsman, rowed 200 yards around a bend before he got in difficulties, capsizing and getting his feet stuck in the rigger's foot straps. His body was recovered later that afternoon and the funeral was held the following day before the tour continued, Stoddardt assuming the captaincy.

Why is the picture iconic?

The early Lions tours were great romantic adventures, it took 46 days sailing through the South Atlantic and Pacific just to get there for heaven’s sake. This was no luxury liner, this was the regular workaday royal mail vessel rammed full of packages and boxes, hampers of fine food, medicines, scientific equipment and would you believe, on this occasion, 300 stoats that had been ordered up to help cull the rampant rabbit population running amok in New Zealand. The Kaikoura was also carrying a consignment of salmon spawn to introduce into New Zealand rivers.

Passage time depended mainly on the elements although the small steam engine meant they always made progress of sorts. There was a stop at Tenerife for coaling, a roller coaster ride in the southern ocean and a stopover at Hobart before they reached Dunedin.

It was the kind of trip that drew a disparate group of individuals close and formed the bonds and camaraderie for which the Lions were to become famous. And indeed rugby. Going the other way a few months later was the New Zealand Natives tour squad – essentially the Maoris – who were embarking on a year-long tour of Europe, Canada and Australia. These trips were extraordinary life experiences.

The weather was rough at first and latterly foggy on this trip, the only pleasant conditions were a few sunny weeks either side of the equator in the south Atlantic. For the rest of the time they had to make their own amusement in the small but cosy lounge.

Meal times were occasions to be anticipated, enjoyed and then prolonged over a smouldering pipe while between times there were brisk walks around he ship or even sunbathing when the weather permitted, card games, quizzes, political debate, a few amateur theatricals and even lectures on an individual’s specialist subject or profession which was something all the British Antarctic expeditions rather made a virtue of.

Footnote: When tourists, minus Seddon, finally returned to Tilbury, on the good ship RMS Kaikoura, plans were already afoot for another Lions tour. That came about in 1891 when Bill Maclagan took a tour party to South Africa.